I know it's only two games in, but how would you rate Riga out of ten? I'd go for 7/10. Two good defensive displays. We are attempting to play decent football with the ball on the ground. The players look up for the challenge of staying up, and a point at Millwall is never a bad return. The let down is obviously the lack of goals, but I really do believe we will score a couple on Tuesday. Riga appears to be self-assured, media savvy, and he seems to have a fair amount of confidence in the team. We've also moved up a couple of places since Wednesday, so that's an obvious plus point. What do you guys reckon?
5/10 No creativity, spark, penetration or end product. The standard of football on offer from both sides yerterday was dire.
Too early. Subbing Astrid at H/T for Cousins and moving Jacko forward was good, but there doesn't seem a lot of difference. When Wee Gordon Strachan was a club manager he was allowed to buy John Hartson and results immediately improved. "I'm a better manager now", said WGS, laconically. Jose is a better manager for having the rapidly improving Poyet, but not as good a manager as he'd be if he had Kermit up front. I heard the first airing of a Jose Riga song yesterday, which was a nice touch.
What was the song FHB? I'd go for a promising 7 out of 10. I think he'll squeeze the most creativity out of the side as humanly possible by abandoning long ball but as everyone knows without the strikers this still might not be enough. I honestly believe that even Fergie would struggle with this squad (which isn't an argument for 'wasn't Powell working wonders'; it's a squad that he assembled)
Ridiculous to even ask the question after two games. In fact, when we failed to beat Huddersfield some here blamed it on Dyer and Matthew who allegedly picked the team and managed it on the day. If true, that would make it one game. Ask the question again on Sunday, April 6th after six more games (3 home, 3 away). If we have got eight points from those I will say he has done well and is an improvement on Powell. As for "media savvy", if that means a few bland generalisations and ducking every question of interest, then he is as media savvy as most politicians, but that is not a compliment in my book. Why give a press conference if your master has briefed you to say nothing? Football-wise it is remarkable how little has changed form Powell. It is still his team. In fact Riga is more like Powell than Powell was in his last weeks. He has restored Pritchard to the team (still awaiting warm applause from Vol) and is starting with Sordell. I have no doubt Sordell looks great in training, and has all the front in the world, which is why Powell kept picking him and took so long to wise up. Now Riga is on the same learning curve. He may already have realised that Adajarevic is only good for 30 minutes in a match. If he omits him it will be even more like Powell's original team. If Riga is going to alternate Cousins and Poyet at DM then I applaud that as being in the lads' best interest. No way should they being playing two games a week in a relegation battle.
He's boring as boring as they come personality wise .. Good result at Millwall poor Result v Huddersfield jury's out for me !
If it's so ridiculous, why bother to offer such a lengthy piece? All I'm asking for is a brief summary of how we think the new man is doing. But it is ridiculous to suggest Dyer and Matthew managed the team for Huddersfield. They were sitting together like two chastised children for 94 minutes. And, yes, I do think JR is media-savvy. He handled a robust press conference with confident ease. I think you'll find Powell was the master of the 'bland generalisation'.
I did not suggest it. Others here who claim to have special insight claimed it. Either way, whether he has been in charge for one game or two it is far too early to tell. Eight games is a fair sample. No arguments there. I groaned everytime he said "we move on". But Powell had nothing new to talk about. Now there are a million questions fans would like answered. Riga has either not been taken into his master's confidence or he he has been briefed to keep his mouth shut, which would not look promising.
Curbs was never particularly insightful in his post-match interviews either, I always thought. It's silly to read too much into what managers say post-match.
I agree it is far too early to tell whether Riga will be a success, but, based solely on the first two games of his tenure, it's not too early to ask how people are taking to him. Even if RD has told Riga to keep his mouth shut, it is hardly a surprise. Emotions are running high, so surely it's better to stick to footballing matters for now.
I reckon he is exactly what we need. The broken hearted Powellites would be looking for an almost identikit manager like Sean Bartlett or Paul Mortimer, (you know like, when they replaced Iron Maiden lead singer Paul Di Annio with Bruce Dickinson, just keep the look the same, the music loud and they won't notice the difference) but we have bought in a Jim Davidson to replace Larry Grayson on the generation game type deal. He will have to suck up to Darth Douchbag of course but my mind is clear on the guy, keep us up and you done a great job,get us relegated and you save your organ grinder four million.
Not much has changed, but in the later part of the game Riga brought on an extra striker to go for the win, which makes a change. Both teams were equally toothless, so it made no difference. If Wall had scored he would have been blamed, if Church had scored,, tactical genius.
Sack everybody. Line them all up against the wall shoot them. Bomb the b******s. Or write a letter to the Times, even.
Please enough with the tunnel jumps. They amount of times I got caught in traffic or missed Dr Who because that idiot wanted to show off.
